Desperate Rescue by Barbara Phinney Page A

lightbulb hanging from one of the beams.”
    A light? The times she’d been down there, only candles were used and she’d kept her head down in hopes no one would notice her. A shudder danced through her. Old knobby candles that smoked and stank and shot long shadows through the basement.
    “To control us,” she whispered. “He only used candles to keep us in the dark.”
    His lips tightened. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
    She lay sprawled on the wire, looking up at him, trying to sort out her panic. “You didn’t answer when I called and I didn’t hear you go downstairs. I saw something outside…” She trailed off and her gaze flickered over to the break in the fence.
    He followed her gaze. “What did you see?”
    “The bushes move. Something deliberately stalking us, following us in.”
    He looked down at her. “Deliberately?”
    She felt a warmth seep into her cheeks. “We’d made enough noise to scare off most wild animals. I—I thought it was you.”
    “Me?” A light of understanding dawned on his face. “You thought I was Noah, that I’d tricked you into revealing how you escaped.” He shook his head, and she saw pain and hurt flit across his features. “I’m not Noah. And I don’t ever want to be him.”
    “Neither Noah nor Phoebe ever mentioned you.”
    “I’d been chasing my brother, searching for Phoebe for years. Of course they wouldn’t talk about me.” He surveyed her grimly. “Now, we have to get you up, but don’t move. You have barbed wire very close to your temple.”
    She rolled her eyes to her left. A sharp V-shaped piece of wire sat just inside her vision. Only then did she feel sting of the scrapes and scratches. She lay still as Eli gently freed her from the tangle of wire. He stepped on the fence, firmly enough for her to know he wanted her off it, too.
    She reached out her hand. When he tugged her to standing, she glanced down. Her best pair of jeans was torn once at the left thigh and once along the outside of her right knee. The fence behind them lifted slightly under the release of the pressure from Eli’s foot. They were outside the fence.
    She watched him flick off twigs, her heartbeat slipping back to normal. Slowly, she recalled her crazy reasoning.
    Crazy, it was. If Noah had lured her in with plans to trap her here, he wouldn’t have been willing to go inside alone. He’d have lured her into the house.
    And he would never have been so kind to her now.
    Still bent over, Eli stared down at her feet. Curious, she followed his gaze to her well-worn street shoes.
    “Kaylee.”
    She heard the warning in his voice and then saw what he saw. A thin wire had tangled itself around her shoe and leg.
    “No!” He reached out to clamp his hand on her arm. “Stay still.”
    But she couldn’t. “It’s digging into my foot.”
    “Kaylee! No! Stay still!”
    Too late. Jumping up, she flicked up her foot to toss off the wire.
    Eli grabbed her and flung her down. Branches broke and gouged into her abdomen as she hit the ground. A second later, he fell on her.
    A second after that, the ground around them exploded.

FIVE
    T he noise was deafening. Vibrations from the blast ripped through her body. She tried to rise, but Eli pinned her firmly to the ground.
    “No,” he whispered in her ear. “Not yet.”
    The acrid odor of burning chemicals stung her nose. She blinked, but it hurt even to keep her eyes closed. Heat roared up her, a whooshing, searing wave blocked only by Eli’s big frame. He shoved her arms under her body to protect them. His short hair bristled against her ear as burning debris rained down on them.
    Then, abruptly, everything stopped. Eli lifted his head and she could feel him above her, scanning the woods. “Ready?” he asked.
    She opened her eyes. “For what?”
    “To run.” He paused, then leapt to his feet, dragging her up with him. “Run! Straight that way! And don’t stop!”
    He pointed and pushed at the same time and Kaylee obeyed